Category: covid positive

Blame the virus

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There’s a worrying thing happening worldwide at the moment. Anecdotally, we’re seeing a lot more people suffering from – and/or dying from – cardiac problems. Generally, these people tend to be relatively young, and often relatively fit. Certainly not the cohort you would expect to be hit in this way.

Of course, the tinfoilers are all over this. After all, what has changed since the onset of the Covid pandemic? Yes, the vaccine. So that must be it, because there’s nothing else that has been so ubiquitously distributed around the world (ha!), so QED, the vaccine is causing the problem.

You actually have to admire their scientific approach. Indeed, when we as scientists are trying to find out what causes something, we too look at changes in the systems which precede that thing. In this case, what we would also consider is:

THE ACTUAL VIRUS

And lookie here: this German study suggests that infection with Covid – even if it’s a mild infection – is associated with heart problems down the line.

And, surprise surprise, they found damage to the heart and increased cardiac markers (the chemicals in the blood that we measure to see if there is damage to the heart) in previously healthy patients.

This is a study that still needs more work (indeed, it’s still ongoing), but the signs are clear. If you have had Covid, you are more likely to have cardiac damage than if you didn’t have Covid. And while in many cases, that might only manifest itself in shortness of breath or chest pain, there will sadly be some individuals who suffer much more serious consequences. See my first paragraph above.

These observations fit well with another study – importantly mostly done before the vaccine was widely released – in which a team based in St Louis, USA found some very disturbing results regarding cardiac and circulatory problems post Covid infection:

Importantly, the more severe the infection (they used non-hospitalised, hospitalised and ICU) the greater the increase in risk, but in virtually every situation, the risk of heart or circulatory disorders was increased in those who had been infected with SARS-CoV-2.

So when we’re out there considering whether to take our booster jab for Covid, please look beyond the anti-vax nonsense. Please ignore the shouty people telling you that “the jab is killing healthy, young people”. No. It’s the damn virus that’s doing that.

And if you want to be better protected against the damn virus, go get the jab.

Fewer updates

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Fewer because the NICD is stopping its daily Covid reporting, and moving to a weekly report instead:

And with that, Ridhwan Suliman’s daily reporting of the NICD’s daily reporting also comes to an end. Well done on a sterling effort throughout the last two (plus) years.

Why these things? Well, because Covid isn’t a big thing in SA at the moment. It has been a big thing in 5 very separate waves:

But it’s not anymore/at the moment.

There are some thick people out there asking where the next wave is now that the mask mandate has been removed in SA, but the fact is that the mandate was removed because there was virtually no Covid around. And while I don’t think there’s any question that we are in a low Covid moment right now, it’s worth noting that there’s likely still a great deal of under-reporting, given that the public don’t have access to Covid tests, and have to pay a few hundred Rands to get one.

No-one has any money and there’s very limited value in doing a test when you aren’t going to act on the results. If you are sick, you’re going to stay in bed anyway. If you aren’t sick, why are you getting tested (aside from the tiny, tiny number who require it for travel)? To spend hundreds on a test, when the result doesn’t matter… well, it’s no wonder that the case numbers are so low.

What next? Who knows… If this virus is going to become seasonal like we’re all being told, then I’d like to know when, exactly. At the moment, it’s still circulating, mutating, and working according to viral timeframes, rather than seasonal ones. And “we” are seemingly happy for that to happen, while it knocks off a 9/11 number each and every week in the USA with virtually no news coverage. Have “we” decided that that’s an ok situation? Are “we” content with that?

I’m not, because there is clearly more to this virus than just that week/fortnight long acute nastiness. We’re learning about more and more complications and long-term effects of Covid every day, and we don’t have anything in place to handle them or mitigate for them.

That’s not good.
And very possibly not sustainable, either.

Deadline

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I am SOOOOO ready to get back to playing football again. Tuesday nights are a bit of a nightmare Chez 6000, so while I’m not playing, I’m doing my level best to help out with taking kids to various places. That way, when I can play once again, and I can’t take kids to places, we can at least look back over the year and note that I did take some of the kids to some places at least some of the time.

The only thing holding me back now is this bloody calf, which sadly, I do need to chat to a Physio about. Medical expenses can like to be absolutely ridiculous this year. Not quite one hour at the cardiologist cost over R4000, but as was pointed out, that’s a tiny fraction of what an actual cardio incident might cost, and that’s a reassuring way to look at it.

The calf is a weird one. I can do everything except run. I can walk up huge hills at 6kph. I can walk for 10km around the neighbourhood. I can use a stepping machine. I can do a cardio session. No issue.
But 20 seconds into a gentle jog (ok, it was a bit longer here, but…) and we’re back to square one. And downhills are worse than uphills, which makes me wonder if the calf actually knows what it’s doing.

I read this article which told me I was getting old, but did have an interesting link to L5/S1 lower back trouble (which I’ve had since I was 16) in elite athletes (which I’ve been all my life). Just weird that it’s never manifested itself in my calf until now, but I guess that’s where the age bit comes in. If “the science” is to be believed, that is. [rolleyes emoji]

But it needs to get sorted and it needs to get sorted before 19th July, which is the last Tuesday before the anniversary of my Covid infection. And I am determined not to let this keep me out for over a year. Whatever it takes to be on that pitch, I will be there.

Because like I say, everything else is ready to go: I haven’t been this fit since… well… just before I got Covid. Whether I can ever get back to that level, I don’t know, but there’s no harm in trying and hoping.

So I’m very ready to get this one little thing mended now and get going again.

Not drinking, but it always makes sense to be prepared

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I’m trying to cut back on fun unhealthier things in life at the moment as the long road to post-Covid fitness continues. One of those things is beer, because it’s hard enough work to get the calories, inches and kilos off without the additional challenge of beer exacerbating those numbers.

But I might want to go back to beer (after all, who wouldn’t?) at any given time, and so I’ll just remind you all of this post. Because nothing in this world comes for free and increasingly, lots of stuff in this world costs a lot more than it used to:

So please forgive me for earning a bit of pocket money when I can.

Massive study suggests that masks cut coronavirus transmission by 19%

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And when I say “massive”, I mean n = 20,000,000.
I mean 92 regions across 6 continents.
With some really novel and sensible statistical work on all those phat, delicious data cakes.

And when I say “19%”, I mean… well… 19%. But that’s a fair chunk as well.

Remembering that the means to getting out of this pandemic are multi-factorial, and follow the “Swiss Cheese” approach:

…whereby none of the measures we try will be 100% effective (some maybe not even close), but using several methods together, we can really limit the spread of infection.

It doesn’t seem like rocket science (because it quite literally isn’t) to work out that somehow limiting the range of someone’s exhalations will result in a reduction in transmission of a virus which we transmit when we breathe out. And yet mask mandates, such as they were observed anyway (something which this study allows for), are being dropped all over the world as we attempt to return to normal life, and to “live with the virus”.

This move was always coming – it has/had to – and I’m all for that return to normal life, but there really doesn’t seem to be any allowance made for the huge morbidity (and yes, the ongoing mortality) from Covid-19. Not just “Long Covid”: no, I’m still not back to full health, 11 months, almost R100,000 of medical expenses and 4 cardiac screenings on from my infection.

We’re still finding new ways in which this virus is affecting the health of people post infection, and many of them are debilitating, chronic conditions: effects on the immune system, diabetes, cardiac conditions etc. Which raises the questions of how many more syndromes related to Covid-19 infection we still don’t know about, and how we plan to deal with the burden on our healthcare systems:

Yes. Like that.

So while I completely understand (and support) a return to whatever passed for “normal life” BTV, sadly (and unpopularly), I don’t think we’re actually ready for that just yet, and it would be very sensible to continue to do everything in our power to limit transmission of the virus until we actually know what else it has in store for us.